


Kerberos did (not) succeed

by GemmaRose



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Gen, Gender-Neutral Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Hallucinations, Paranoia, Pidge | Katie Holt-centric, Siblings, ooh there are tags for those?, totally using them on everything from here on out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-18
Updated: 2016-12-23
Packaged: 2018-08-31 17:11:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8586877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GemmaRose/pseuds/GemmaRose
Summary: After the return of the Kerberos mission, things go back to normal. Samuel continues to teach at the Garrison, Shiro continues to come around for dinner at least once a week, Matt continues to be a nerd. But Katie can't shake the feeling that something's wrong, that nothing is continuing at all.That the three people who came back from the mission are not the three people who left.Crossposted from the Voltron kink meme.





	1. Chapter 1

Katie Holt groaned and turned onto her side, pulling her blanket over her head and trying to sink back into her dream. There was something important, had to- a sudden blaring made her startle, and when she finally managed to flail her alarm clock into silence the dream had slipped away. Pity, too. She was pretty sure it had been about space, and those were always fun to tell her dad about. And Matt and Shiro would’ve probably liked to hear about it too, when they all got back.

She sat up and yawned, swinging her feet out of bed. After some bleary contemplation of her closet, she grabbed a dress and shuffled off to the bathroom. Twenty minutes later she skidded into the kitchen, sliding to a stop in front of the fridge and pulling it open. “We’re out of OJ.” she said, reaching in and grabbing the bottle.

“I just poured myself some earlier.” Mom frowned, looking up from grading summer school papers. “Isn’t it at least half full?”

“Correction, we’re _about_ to be out of OJ.” Katie grinned, crossing the kitchen to grab one of the big glasses.

“I’m not buying more until I go shopping again.”

Katie paused, then shrugged. “Okay.”

The day was as uneventful as a Saturday should be, spent with friends from robotics club tweaking Sharon’s BB gun to shoot at a high enough pressure to puncture the corrugated tin siding of her neighbour’s shed from her bedroom window, and when Katie biked home the sun was setting slowly behind a tower of clouds that signalled an incoming rainstorm. Dinner was simple, fettuccine alfredo with chicken and peas, and afterwards Katie went upstairs to change into PJs and work on one of her little coding pet projects while her mom watched the news.

As the clock in the lower right corner of her screen neared 9, however, a heavy sense of dread began to settle in her gut. Something was wrong, really wrong. Either that or a terrible thing was about to happen. She tried to ignore it, the feeling had never amounted to anything before after all, but after half an hour she pushed back from her computer and stood up. She’d just go downstairs real quick and make sure Mom was okay.

The news caster was talking about a local business on fire in a nearby town, and Katie sat on the stairs as her mom half watched half dozed. Something still felt off, but not enough to stop her from nearly nodding off on the stairs.

\---

Katie bounced on the balls of her feet, hugging Matt’s favourite hoodie to her chest. It was chilly today, even the desert could get cold in early February, and since Matt was officially still a student until he finished his final paper he didn’t have a heavy dress uniform to wear. The stairs were finally wheeled into place next to the shuttle door, and Katie practically vibrated under her mom’s hand on her shoulder. She wanted to tear across the tarmac, sprint up the stairs and hug her returning family. Eight months without them had made the house feel strange, some days lately it felt like they were never going to come back at all, and she could hardly wait to have them back home.

A figure in a spacesuit appeared in the doorway, and Katie went still. “Mom?” she looked up, tugging on her mother’s jacket to get her attention. “Who’s that?”

“That’s Takashi.” her mom smiled indulgently. “It’s strange to see him without his undercut, isn’t it?”

“I guess.” Katie frowned, looking back at the man descending the steps. His hair looked wrong, yeah, but so did his space suit and everything the colourful protective fabric didn’t hide. “Isn’t Shiro, yknow, bigger?”

“No, dear.” her mom laughed, ruffling Katie’s hair carefully. “You’ve just grown a bit since they left.”

That made sense, she’d grown up a bit and her mental image was almost a full year out of date. Katie nodded, and grinned again as her brother appeared in the shuttle doorway. “You’ve got Matt’s glasses, right?” she looked up at her mom briefly, and got another laugh and hair ruffle.

“Of course. They’re in their case, in my purse.”

It felt like ages before the guard let them and Shiro’s parents advance, and Katie _sprinted_ forward. Matt staggered on impact, and Katie grinned against his chest.

“Miss me?” Matt laughed, hugging her back.

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” she murmured, releasing him and stepping back to hold out his hoodie as Mom and the Shiroganes arrived. “You don’t have a dress uniform yet, so I thought you might want another layer.”

“And here I thought you were going to turn all my stuff into robot accessories while I was off-world.” Matt teased, tucking the hoodie under one arm and ruffling Katie’s hair with the other.

“Come ooon.” she whined, patting it back down. “I actually spent time on this today.”

“Wow, really?” Matt grinned, and viciously mussed Katie’s hair. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Matt.” Mom and Dad said, but Mom’s half laugh sorta ruined Dad’s sternness.

“You don’t get your glasses back until you apologize.” Mom said, waving the case in one hand.

Matt laughed, and made a half-hearted attempt at flattening the back of Katie’s hair down again. “Sorry.”

“Don’t know why I missed you at all, jerk.” Katie huffed, punching Matt in the shoulder. He just grinned and pulled his hoodie on over the form fitting suit, hiding the blue fabric under stained and faded grey.

“I missed you too, brat.” Matt beamed, punching her back. Katie grinned, and did her best to ignore the creeping sense of wrongness emanating from the man her mother had called Takashi.


	2. Chapter 2

The first few days of having Dad back after a mission were always a little weird, and Matt having been on the mission compounded the weirdness, but still things should’ve felt normal again after the first week. She shouldn’t still glance through her brother’s half open door and startle at the sight of him working on his thesis paper, shouldn’t do a double take every time she saw her parents having coffee together, shouldn’t feel a slimy coil of _wrongness_ twisting inside her every time ‘Shiro’ came over for dinner. It was stupid, it was irrational, but she just couldn’t bring herself to look him in the eye. Something about him, everything about him, it kept pinging as wrong and for the life of her she couldn’t understand why.

That was why, all of six hours into summer vacation, she was ripping out all of her history notes from the barely-used notebook and devoting it to something far less rational. Picking up her favourite green glitter gel pen, she tapped the capped end against her chin for a few seconds before setting it to the header of what was now the first page. What’s Wrong with Takashi “Shiro” Shirogane? Katie printed neatly, then popped the cap off the back end and clicked it back into place on the writing end. Setting the green pen down next to the others, she picked up the next one in line.

1- Nothing is wrong with Shiro, Katie is being stupid she scrawled in orange, then clicked the cap back into place and put it back down. 2- Shiro’s brain got invaded by Yeerks on Kerberos went on the page in blue, and Katie shook her head even as she capped and set down the pen, picking up the red one from next to it. Yeerks? Really? They were fictional, and even if some similar alien existed there were way too many logistical holes in that plot.

3-  she wrote, then tapped the capped end of the pen against her cheek for a second. Pod people? Katie stared at the list for a second, then snorted. This was ridiculous. She was being ridiculous. Shiro had just, changed. Space did that to people, and so did taking an eight-month-long shuttle trip with Matt and her dad. She just had to get to know him again, that was all. Shouldn’t be hard, he always hung around after dinner. Usually to be stupid and sappy with Matt, but there had to be _some_ time when she could hang out with him and not be a third wheel.

\---

The start of high school was fast approaching, and Katie still hadn’t found a time to hang out with Shiro where she wasn’t a third wheel. Worse, Matt had started to give off the same weird vibe as his boyfriend. She started writing in her notebook again, foregoing glitter gel pens for simple black ink in the name of expediency. The ‘what’s wrong with Shiro’ list became a list of things that seemed Off about him, along with theories about what could be causing it. She couldn’t deny that _something_ was wrong, but if it was slowly spreading to her own family then she couldn’t delay in figuring out what it was and how to make everyone else see it.

-

High school, when it finally started, felt surreal. Her school district was pretty small, but she still didn’t share a single class with anyone she knew from middle school. Combined with the unending feeling of being in the wrong place, she’d never hated school more. And then, one night, Shiro brought someone else with him to dinner. A cadet, or more accurately a prep-cadet. He was three years older than her, head and shoulders taller, and Katie hated him on sight.

It wasn’t the way Shiro introduced him as the best pilot he’d ever known, or his stupid-looking hair, or even the fact that nobody had told her she’d need to set two extra plates for dinner instead of one. No, it was his face. It was like Shiro’s, wrong in a way she couldn’t define, and when her mom hugged him it was all Katie could do not to pull her away and get between them. It was a stupid impulse, anyways. She was an unarmed fourteen year old girl, he was a Galaxy Garrison cadet with a full year of combat training under his belt. Mom pulled away, and Katie felt all that nebulous unease coalesce into a dense ball of anxiety in her gut. Shiro’s +1 was smiling, and it looked _wrong_.

“Katie, don’t stare.” Dad chastised.

“Sorry.” she said, looking away and making a mental note to add this guy’s name to her conspiracy notebook. “Just, he’s got a weird smile is all.” she shrugged. The boy’s face settled into something between confusion and anger when she spoke, and Katie breathed a little easier.

The entirety of dinner was a painful affair, Shiro’s cadet sitting on her left and chatting easily about his studies, his annoying room mate, the handful of friends Shiro had encouraged him to make after returning from Kerberos. He laughed at Shiro’s dumb jokes, and Katie’s guts twisted. This was Wrong, all of this. He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be smiling and laughing like he was a human being, shouldn’t be sitting in the chair to her left helping himself to Mom’s mashed potatoes with such an easy smile.

He tried to corner her in the living room after dinner, while Shiro and Matt did the dishes and Mom and Dad put away the leftovers. She punched him in the gut and ran for her room. His name went down in red glitter gel pen, and she scribbled angry alien faces in the margins. Things with sharp teeth and hateful eyes that might be technologically advanced enough to disguise themselves as human. Were probably that advanced, considering they’d figured out interstellar travel.

\---

Katie kept her eyes on her bowl of pasta, determinedly not looking at Shiro or Matt or the hotshot pilot-in-training who was currently the center of attention. Katie thought about the notebook tucked under her pillow, about her grandpa’s brass knuckles which were too big around her small fingers but provided a comforting weight in the right hand hoodie pocket, about how _worth it_ her punch last week had been. Yeah she’d been grounded for a solid week, but his cheek still had that hint of a bruise from where he’d staggered into the bookshelf.

“So I wound up in the sim room early for the test, and I found out I wasn’t the first one there.” he said, waving around a slice of garlic bread in his hand. “There was this total nuisance waiting for me with his hulk of a mechanic, claimed we were rivals and he’d blow my score out of the water.” he snorted, and a shiver ran down Katie’s spine. “As if. He’s only even in my class because he begged Shiro for remedial lessons.”

“What’re their names?” Katie asked, risking a sidelong glance at him. He shrugged, and took a bite of his garlic bread.

“Fuck if I know.” he mumbled through the mouthful of food.

“Keith, language.” Shiro scolded, but it sounded more habitual than actually irritated. “And I didn’t give McClain remedial lessons, I tutored him and his squad the same way I tutored you, for the same reason. He _asked_. He’ll be an exceptional pilot once he’s had the chance to grow up a bit more.”

“Still not gonna call him my rival.” he huffed, putting down the garlic bread and picking up his fork.

Katie shivered, and focused back on her food. Her family was chuckling, and she wanted to slam her fists on the table and yell at them all to shut up. But they couldn’t see it, and her only ‘proof’ was a persistent feeling of unease that any shrink would probably try to call anxiety or something. She needed proof, something irrefutable, but how could she do that if she didn’t even have a clear idea of what she was trying to prove?


	3. Chapter 3

Katie looked down at her notebook, then up at the expanse of desert in front of her. The apparition had appeared in this area twice before, and today she was finally going to get some decent notes on it. She already knew it didn’t show up on her phone camera, and had a general description written down, but her existing sketch was awful. Stick-thin limbs, jutting shoulders, a blank outline for the head. She’d doodled better made-up aliens in the margins of this very same notebook.

The air shimmered, sand seeming to glass over like a heat mirage, and then It rose up from the distortion. It was mostly white, with a few darker patches, and no matter how she squinted or shuffled side to side its face remained a sun glare. Katie slowly approached, glancing down every few steps to add a little more to her sketch before continuing. Eventually her feet sank into the sand where It materialized, but she was no close to Its position.

It almost seemed to be beckoning her further into the desert, away from all the craziness and the tense, awkward unease which had been slowly filling her home ever since Matt and Dad returned from space. The house had become almost unbearable, school had become unbearable, her friends had drifted away into new groups she just couldn’t seem to insert herself into, only the desert was still as it should be. She took a step after It, then paused. It might be a malicious spirit, trying to lure her to her death. Which seemed pretty unlikely, honestly. The apparition had never once felt unsafe or wrong the way the men in her family did now.

But still, the fact remained that It obviously wasn’t human. Even if It meant no harm, It might not understand that the desert was dangerous to try crossing without adequate equipment and supplies. “I can’t follow you.” she called out. It seemed to tilt its head to the side, though the glare coming from Its face made it hard to tell. But it was definitely reacting to her, which meant it had some kind of intelligence. “I’d need water, and hiking clothes.”

It held still for a minute, then vanished entirely. Katie sighed, and jotted down a few more notes under the rough sketch. She had to get home for dinner, but if the apparition wanted to lead her into the desert... the weekend was coming up, and Mom wouldn’t question her spending a day with a friend.

\---

Katie looked over her checklist one last time, then at her backpack. Everything she needed fit neatly inside, and she used it to haul projects around often enough that nobody would think twice about the strange shapes inside which clearly weren’t school supplies. She did yet another check, confirming everything was where she’d put it, then zipped her bag shut and slung it over her shoulder. It was heavy, but not much heavier than her textbooks, and it’d only get lighter throughout the day.

“I’m going over to Sharon’s!” she called out as she ran down the stairs, skidding slightly on the little dust-catcher rug laid out just inside the front door.

“Will you be home for dinner?” Mom called from the home office.

“Probably not.” Katie said loudly, pulling open the door.

“Be home by eleven.” was all Mom had to say, and Katie grinned. Her mom was probably the most chill mom she’d ever met. She jogged over to where her bike was leaned up against the side of the garage, and checked the combination lock on its handlebars out of habit more than any plan to use it..

She rode down the driveway at a casual speed, then took a wide turn into the street. When she reached the probably-haunted and perpetually for sale house on the next block she dismounted and walked her bike back to the shed. The padlock did jack shit, since the bit which connected to the door jam came loose with a good shake, but nobody took or reported anything that was inside. Katie was pretty sure it had been used as a drug drop at one point, but now all that was important was it provided a safe place to stash her bike.

She wiggled the metal plate back into place, hung a water bottle from her belt on a carabiner, adjusted the bag on her shoulders, and started off into the desert towards the last place she’d seen the apparition. It didn’t appear until her hometown was a smudge on the horizon, but Katie got the impression that it was happy to see her. It flickered out, then a few seconds later reappeared further away. She was about ninety percent sure that this was either an alien asking for help via hologram projection, or a restless spirit which needed help to move on, but on the off chance she was wrong she did have her old scout pocket knife in her back pocket.

After a few hours of trekking after the apparition, Katie realized where it was leading her. Dad had brought them out to the standing rocks pretty often when Matt was on a geology kick and she was interested in whatever her big brother liked. The next thing he’d gotten into was robots, and the memory made her smile briefly before she remembered where she was. It was easy to get lost in the standing stones if you didn’t know the area, and she, well, didn’t. Katie hesitated next to the first pillar of probably-sandstone, looking over her shoulder towards home. It wasn’t visible, lost over the horizon. There was a heaviness resting just under her diaphragm, not the same as the leaden weight of anxiety but definitely accompanied by it.

The apparition wavered in the shadow of the next freestanding pillar, its head cocked slightly to the side and face still a sun-glare. Katie swallowed in an attempt to banish the sudden tension in her limbs. She’d come this far, she couldn’t turn back now. Or, no, she could. She could still turn around, walk home, pretend she’d never seen the apparition and just gone on a desert hike with Sharon. This was the knife’s-edge, the point of no return. If she followed the apparition any further than this, she wouldn’t be able to turn back. No matter what she found, it would change her life. She wasn’t sure why she was so certain of that, but it was definitely the truth. Turn back and keep living a normal life, or follow an apparition of unknown intent into a stone maze which she might never get out of, even if she did find the answers she was looking for.

Katie took a deep breath, gripped the straps of her backpack, and stepped forward.


	4. Chapter 4

Katie looked around, the corners of her mouth pulling down into a small frown. This place felt familiar, but she was positive she’d never been here before. The area Dad had taken them to had much narrower trails, and none of these four-foot-something ledges. She sat down on the edge of one, and pushed off. Her feet hit the lower shelf of stone evenly, and she dusted her palms off on her dirty shorts. And as if the impossible familiarity wasn’t weird enough, the apparition was gaining clarity. It wasn’t even flickering forward anymore, just walking. Its legs were unfairly long, but it stopped periodically and looked over its shoulder to check if she was still following.

It lead her to a sunken area with a handful of caves, and Katie followed it into one. She reached out to run her fingers along the wall, trying to call to mind Matt’s childhood ramblings about striation and plate tectonics and historical climatology. The further she followed the apparition into the cave, however, the more tense she got. The familiarity, though inexplicable, had been comforting. Now that gentle warmth had been doused by the same cold sense of wrongness which permeated every other aspect of her life.

No, no this couldn’t be happening. The desert was the one thing which hadn’t soured, the one place she could still feel like everything was okay. She clutched her head, sinking to her knees. Stupid, _stupid_ girl. Life didn’t follow neat clean narrative structure, just because something felt like it would give her answers didn’t mean it _would_.

“-real!”

Katie lifted her head, fingers tangled in her bangs. That, wasn’t her voice. Shit, what if the apparition was how whatever took Matt and Dad and Shiro was luring new victims in? There was no cell signal here, nobody knew where she was. If it caught her, she’d probably be lucky to end up dead! She scrambled to her feet, and it was standing right in front of her. Where a sun glare had once hidden its face, now a curved pane of absolute blackness shielded it. The darkness was hypnotising, freezing her to the spot.

“Pidge!” it whispered again, the voice sending a chill down her spine. It didn’t sound right, like it was screaming from a distance instead of whispering just a foot away from her. How did it know that nickname? Matt hadn’t called her that since his retro-video-games kick, when he was twelve and she was four. But he had called her that, and whatever was impersonating him had all his memories. Dad’s too. The apparition wasn’t the answer to whatever was impersonating her family, it was the _cause_.

Katie screamed, ripped the waterbottle from her belt, and swung it at the apparition’s head with all her strength. It passed right through, and she turned on her heel to run. The sun beat down, and her muscles screamed, but while she slowed from a sprint to a jog she didn’t collapse until she reached the old shed with her bike inside. The sun-baked metal burnt against her palms, but it did nothing to banish the chill which had settled under her lungs.

\---

The apparition flickered in the corner of her eye, and Katie deliberately looked away. It had no power this far from its cave, it couldn’t hurt her. But its victims could, so she had to make sure they wouldn’t want to. Assuming they still had free will, whatever they were. For all she knew, the apparition could control the impostors perfectly no matter how many there were. But even if that was the case, maybe showing she was willing to coexist would keep it from trying to hurt her.

“Your move.”

Katie looked down at the wooden board, examining the rows of hollows and their colourful glass contents. Scooping up a few, she let one slip through her fingers in each hollow until the end. That let her repeat the process, and by the end she’d added four tokens to her pool. “Yours.” she managed a smile, and it was even a little bit genuine when Keith scowled at the board.

“I swear you’re cheating.” he muttered, eyes flicking over the board and his potential moves.

“Like it’s possible to cheat at Mancala.” Katie rolled her eyes.

“If it is, you’re doing it.” he huffed, the little round bits of colourful glass making a quiet sound as he dropped them into the wooden depressions.

“So, Shiro said he met you in the tutoring center?” she asked, fingers tapping on her knee as she contemplated her next move. “Is he the reason you’re the top pilot in your class?”

“Nah.” Keith shook his head. “I’ve always been a great pilot. I just liked the extra sim time.”

“So if you didn’t need him tutoring you, how’d you get so close?” Katie moved a few more tokens, setting up for another big score next turn.

“I’m not supposed to talk about it.” Keith shrugged, effortlessly destroying her setup and smirking. “Your turn.”

“I hate you, just for the record.” Katie fired back, scowling at the board and plotting outcomes. This should’ve felt easy, it was the same sort of banter she maintained with Matt when they played games, but the feeling of wrongness persisted. She scooped up a few, and started distributing them. “But I can keep a secret.” she pointedly didn’t mention that he was an imposter, choosing instead to scoop up her next batch of tokens and keep distributing them.

“Well, you’re not Garrison, so I guess it’s okay.” Keith wasn’t looking at her when she glanced up, all his focus on the board. “He got me into a club that technically doesn’t exist.”

Katie’s eyebrows went up, and she lifted her hand away from the board with colourful bits of glass still trapped in the cage of her fingers. “Are you telling me there’s a Garrison fight club?”

“Something like that. There’s rules an’ stuff, but rule one is to not talk about it so.” he shrugged, and met her eyes. “Shiro says we met in tutoring.”

At the edge of her vision, Katie saw a flicker of white and a flash of sun glare. She looked back at the board, and went back to taking her turn. If she made it clear she wasn’t an immediate threat, she could win time to figure out what had happened to her real family.


	5. Chapter 5

Three weeks since the apparition followed me home. Mom is acting weird, always when it’s around her, but she can’t see it. I need to figure out how to keep her safe, it’s not taking her.

-

Twenty three days. I think it’s trying to tell me something. If it’s caught on to my plans, I’m doomed.

-

I can’t protect mom all the time, but the tazer I bought yesterday should help if the dad-imposter tries anything.

-

Thirty days since desert excursion. It’s following me to school now. For some reason it never comes in my room. I don’t think it can. So long as I keep this notebook in here, it’s safe.

-

Mom and the dad imposter were talking about something earlier, but they stopped when I came in. I can’t let him poison her against me. She’s the only thing that still feels right.

-

It’s been here for five weeks. I think it’s getting stronger somehow, maybe by siphoning energy off the imposters? It hasn’t tried to get mom yet. I think it’s toying with me. Stupid turd doesn’t know us Holts are fucking unbreakable.

-

The apparition is definitely getting stronger. It’s been yelling for Pidge since last night. How does one stuff a sock in the mouth of an incorporeal nuisance?

-

 ~~It isn’t~~ ~~I don’t~~ It saved me. I would’ve been a street pancake if it hadn’t showed up in front of me and startled me into stepping back. It’s standing in the doorway, calling me. I think it’s time for me to listen.

-

Not real. The imposters, they’re not real. But there can only be one version of a person at a time. I need to get rid of the fakes, or make them match the real deal close enough to fool the cosmic balance that’s keeping them away. Killing them will be easier. I can do Matt and Dad’s in their sleep, it’ll be painless. Shiro and Keith are gonna be harder, but I’ll finally get to use my tazer.

\---

“Serving bowl.” not-Shiro said from behind them, and Katie startled at the sudden sound of a chair squeaking on the kitchen tile. Not-Shiro yelped, and Katie felt a flash of vicious satisfaction knowing he’d just stubbed his toe before another loud noise made her whirl around. Mom’s nice big ceramic bowl was in pieces on the floor, and not-Shiro was looking at the mess with wide eyes.

“Shit, I’m so sorry Mrs. Holt.” he said quickly, crouching and grabbing a big shard. Its edges were sharp, easily sharp enough to cut through human skin, and Mom was stepping away from the sink towards the mess. There couldn’t be two of a person in the world at once, so for the imposters to get Mom... not-Shiro started to stand, and Katie grabbed blindly at the drying rack. Her hand closed around a wooden handle, and she let out a wordless scream of rage as she lunged forward.

The knife blade slice cleanly through his skin, biting through the cartilage of his nose far more easily than it would’ve if he’d been human. He cried out in pain as he staggered backwards, and Katie looked down at the weapon in her hand, at the spray of crimson on her forearm and across the front of her shirt. It wasn’t really blood, though. It looked and smelled and felt like blood, sure, but it wasn’t real. He wasn’t real, nothing about him was real, she just needed to get rid of him so the real Shiro could come back.

“What the _fuck_?!” he yelled, dropping the piece of broken bowl and staggering into the table, hands clutching the bright crimson gash across his face.

“You look better like that.” Katie grinned, lifting the knife for another swing. The arm had plenty of big arteries and veins in it. If she could get at those, this imposter would die and the real Shiro would come back. Then Mom would understand, then she'd see for herself that Dad and Matt were fakes too. Then Shiro and Mom would help her get rid of the rest of the imposters and everything would go back to normal.

“Samuel, call 911.” Mom said quickly, stepping between her and not-Shiro. “Katie drop the knife.”

“But-”

“Drop it!” Mom snapped, pressing a dish towel to Shiro’s face. Katie’s hand swung down to her side, but she didn’t release the blade.

“He’s not real, though.” she frowned, watching the towel stain with too-bright red. “He’s not.”

\---

When the cops arrived, Katie didn’t struggle as they prised the knife from her fingers and fastened cool metal handcuffs around her wrists. Everything felt distant, unreal. Matt and Dad went to the hospital with Shiro once the ambulance arrived, and when the cops walked her out of the house Mom came with. The booking didn’t take long, she smiled for the camera when they took her picture and answered all the interrogator’s questions honestly. He didn’t seem to believe her when she said that the Shiro who came back from space was an imposter who had to die before the real Shiro could come back, but she hadn't expected him to. Mom seemed to understand, though, and as long as Mom understood then she could relax a little bit.


	6. Chapter 6

Katie laid on her narrow cot, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. The apparition had followed her all the way here, so far from the desert. It was weak and flickery, barely visible at all, but it was definitely there. It made some sort of gesture with its arms, like it wanted her attention, and she sighed as she sat up. It wasn’t like she had anything better to do, really. She turned to face it, and her eyes widened. The apparition had changed. Not much, but it definitely looked different. It was distinctly less spindly now, and without a sun glare or mask of pure darkness she could tell it had a face under its visor. She narrowed her eyes, forcing herself to focus on the indistinct figure.

“Why are you still following me?” she asked, crossing her legs and resting her hands on her ankles. The apparition, unsurprisingly, didn’t answer. Katie sighed and leaned back, running a hand through her bangs. “You said they’re not real. Not Real, that’s what you told me. But how do I make everyone else see it?” her throat tightened, but she resolutely didn’t sob. She had to know that Mom would be okay, which meant finding a way to make sure she knew how to get back the real Matt and Dad and Shiro. And Keith, too. Leaving one imposter would allow them to make more.

Katie tilted her head, and frowned at the apparition. Was it just her imagination, or was it not flickering as frequently? No, just her mind processing the motion faster, like watching a .gif speed up as it repeated. She sighed, and went back to fiddling with the hem of her shirt. The waiting was the worst part. Her trial or hearing or whatever was in just over twelve hours, and in theory she’d be asleep for most if not all of it, but she was too keyed up to rest.

The apparition’s continued presence didn’t exactly help, either. Despite the feeling of familiarity, Katie couldn’t bring herself to fall asleep while it was still flickering and trying to talk to her. It was repeating the same thing over and over again, she could tell that much, but still the only words that made sense were her old nickname and “not real” which wasn’t any kind of improvement. There wasn’t much of a gap between the words, though, so the total message couldn’t possibly be very long.

“Pidge.” it whisper-shouted for the billionth time, and Katie tilted sideways until her head hit the pillow. Exhaustion was winning out over anxiety, for once, and right when the static was finally fading out... she struggled to pry her eyes open, but only got a brief glimpse of the disconcertingly solid apparition before sleep washed over her.

“Wake up.”

\---

Katie groaned, turning over to bury her face in the pillow and avoid the light which was doing its damndest to stab her in the retinas. Her trial was today, and- she turned her head, squinting her eyes open. Yep, the apparition was still here. It looked fully solid, though, and it was smiling. It had a face under its visor, and it was smiling. At her.

“Mornin’, sleepy-head.” he teased, the edges of his blue eyes crinkling as he smiled.

“Lance?” Katie mumbled, eyes flicking over his armour and flight suit and-

Pidge sat up so fast their head spun. What the fuck? They were on Earth, their hair was longer than it had been since joining the Garrison, and... “Lance, why are we in jail?” they asked, rubbing their eyes and reaching for their glasses. Where were their glasses? “Actually, on second thought, don’t tell me.” they sighed, abandoning the futile search for their eyewear and just pinching the bridge of their nose. “Are we getting busted out or is Allura going to have to negotiate bail again?”

Lance laughed, and held out a hand. Pidge swung their feet over the edge of the cell’s only cot, and let their friend pull them to their feet.

The cell vanished, and they staggered forward out of a cryo-pod. Abruptly, everything clicked into place. The battle, the bolt of dark druidic magic aimed at Shiro’s back, the months on Earth where they must’ve known, on some level, that it wasn’t real. None of it had been real. Seeing their family again, pulling faces at Shiro and Matt when they were sappy, messing around with Sharon and Harold and the rest of the robotics club. It had all been a dream.

Strong arms wrapped around them, voices washing over their ears without any of the words sinking in. Matt and Dad were still Galra prisoners, Mom was home on Earth all alone, their friends from middle school probably thought they were _dead_. Tears welled up in their eyes, and Shiro’s mismatched arms tightened around them as a sob wrenched itself from their throat. Everything could’ve been so good, so normal, and the reality check was so cold it hurt. More arms wrapped around them, first Hunk, then Lance, they were pretty sure even Keith and the alteans joined in as their tears were winding down. Shiro had pulled the mind-meld headset off their head and was stroking their hair, but paused when they pulled away as much as the crush of bodies around them would allow.

“I forgot.” they whispered, and Shiro pulled them back against his chest. The fabric of his vest was soft against their cheek, as familiar as the feel of wire spooling out between their fingers. They’d forgotten everything. Forgotten to miss Hunk’s hugs and Lance’s terrible jokes and Coran’s wacky stories. Forgotten Allura and Shiro’s confident leadership, forgotten Keith’s brusque affection, forgotten Green’s presence like a shadowy forest in the back of their mind. “I’m so sorry.” the mumbled into Shiro’s vest, unsure if the apology was directed at their team or their Lion.

“It’s okay.” Shiro murmured as they relaxed slightly, the rest of the group backing off. “It’s okay, you’re back, you’re here.”

“Can I ask a question, though?” Lance piped up. Pidge looked over their shoulder, which he took as permission to continue, fiddling with the mind-meld headset in his hands. “So, like, I get why Shiro was over at your house all the time, but why was Keith there?”

“I was there?” Keith asked, visibly confused when he turned to look at Shiro for answers. “You said it was none of my business.”

“You were a student I was tutoring.” Shiro said, a smile in his voice as Pidge pulled out of his arms.

“So that whole fight club thing was just part of the dream?” Pidge asked, pushing their glasses up on their nose.

“How did you-” Shiro frowned, brow furrowing.

“No way.” Lance blurted. “The Garrison has a fight club? How come I never knew this!?”

Keith scoffed, rolling his eyes. “Because each supervisor can only induct one student a semester? Obviously, none of them would’ve picked you.”

“I still would’ve heard about it.” Lance protested, crossing his arms.

“First rule of fight club.” Keith smirked. “Don’t talk about fight club.”

Lance’s mouth opened and closed a few times, and Pidge couldn’t help but laugh at the look on his face. They had forgotten, but now they remembered. The dream had been nice, a taste of Earth-normalcy in the middle of space, but that wasn’t their life anymore. This; Keith and Lance arguing, Hunk and Coran egging them on, Shiro and Allura trying to be stern leaderly adults and make them stop even though both of them were fighting smiles... this was real, this was the new normal. And Pidge wouldn’t trade it for a hundred lifetimes of Earth-normalcy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aaand, that's a wrap! Props to Gawain, who called the twist in their review last chapter, and thanks to everyone who's left a review. I hope you had as much fun reading this story as I had writing it :}


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